Obituaries Poems | Examples

Lost Art

Behind the moon, where hunters hunt
In secret, the whiff of boiling lipsticks
Chastises the lungs of scorpions.
Murals hang on battered doors of
Decrepit banners, hoisted by dust-swept
Elements of colours –etched and painted.
Drums are sober, frightening withered
Hands that beat them to lean delirium.
Rotten eggs hatch on their own,
Their shells, white-toothed fragments of
Lost archives, posted with the obituaries
Of totems of muted art.
The silence on the moon haunts.
That on the back of the moon sears,
Sears incoherently,
All agonies of a wasted age with fires,
Moon fires, old and ravenous,
Which smelt the vagaries of a
Limitless anxiety.

Life is a lottery

We live in a matrix of unpredictability,
your fate randomized at best
by numbers shouted out by a bingo caller.

B for birth marks, qualities and defects.
I for inherent or sudden health issues.
N for near death experiences altering your life.
G for grand events that bring you happiness.
O for obituaries and the inevitability of death.

We can't take anything for granted.
We draw straws and just accept that
life is a gift ~ come what may.



AP: 2nd place 2025, Honorable Mention 2025

It Ain't Ever Over

      The Stupid Bowl is Over
       Except for the analyses
            the replays
            the highlight reels
            the interviews
            the talk-shows
            the editorials
            the commentaries
            the speculation 
            the what-ifs
            the tributes 
            the obituaries 
            (the hangovers)...
       It ain’t over ‘til next February

tired of having my soul tell me what to do

I feel sluggish
can barely move through the sludge and mud
burdened with the woes of the world

turn off the news! my soul shrieks at me
it will bog you down
until you are stuck in a tar pit of unhappiness

This idea has merit
but am I ready to give up my horrible feelings?
gloom and doom sometimes works for me

I reach for a newspaper,
turning it to the obituaries
“not that!” screams my psyche

I do not care
I am tired of having my soul tell me what to do.

Sobering

When I’m gliding blithely through my days,
Life, with its blunt, disconcerting ways, 
interrupts my peace with sobering realities
that heighten my awareness and bring me to my knees
uttering praise for being spared or, for others, urgent pleas.

The fifteen obituaries in the paper one day last week
were all for people younger than I. Naturally, I seek
to enjoy a long life. I presume those people wanted that too!
I pray thoughts of mortality won’t leave me with a morbid view
but will motivate me to pursue goals, both old and new.

When news reports reveal the true state of the world,
it never fails: New hair-raising terrors are unfurled.
I shiver just thinking of future generations~~
grandkids, their kids, and theirs . . .  and the deliberations
they must maneuver through to maintain solid foundations. 

Sobering realities will continue to assault my peace of mind,
but due to a degree of late-in-life wisdom, I’m inclined
to prayerfully do what I can to fix or eliminate a situation, 
then turn it over to the One in the highest station.
The Lord has power over every complication.

Old Age

How time goes racing now when there's no need to--
when there's so little farther left to go:
over the river--under the trees. Time ought to lead us 
slow...slow! 
                        --Archibald MacLeish
                                 1892-1982 

We talk about bodily functions, 
what works and what doesn't. 
We talk about medications,
and name them one by one
hoping we will win
the who has the most contest.
We talk about obituaries 
written daily in the local paper, 
jokingly relieved 
when we are not in it.
We talk about family
and tell the same stories 
we have told and heard 
for decades,
laughing or crying 
in certain places 
as if it is our first time
hearing the telling~
knowing our world is getting 
smaller with each passing day,
that soon we will be
only names on a gravestone,
trampled and forgotten 
in Time's relentless march.

Dead Poets

I'm lost in words
I cannot write a poem
Is this a word depression
I await wet Autumn afternoons
for obituaries on past poets
Dead horizons roll on their heads
towards an uncertain future

Play Death

Let’s play hangman,
let's play Russian roulette,
play chicken with an 18-wheeler
play the days away
with a dare and a do.

Is not life a tightrope
whether we like it or not?
Sometimes you are a
free climber on an impossible cliff face
you show the way,
sometimes you make the obituaries.

It's a game nothing more,
is it dangerous, is it exhilarating,
is it worth it?

A game has to play,
it's nothing real or lasting,
we all get to go home
leaving the toys behind us.

The smoking gun,
the hanging man,
the blazing crash
on a scorching highway,
toss the coin
play death for one more day.

Crazy Obituary Notice

Nicely bearing The Title Straight to Heaven
But the chap had lived A Short Twenty Seven
And he was wielding AK 47;
Some embarrassing gunshots in God’s Heaven!
You see: some obituaries read quite stupid: 
This one made subject against Love and Cupid.
I could not excuse his khaki uniform:
I just could see he had lived A Life of Storm.

An obituary notice far from limpid,
A concentration on The Oddly Vapid:
Someone who’d roamed The Earth and it was rapid;
A message as tasteless as the insipid…

Why a weapon loaded and probably cocked,
In toughest fabric portraying a heart locked?
The Guy I could presume “Resting in Pieces;
Wherever he is like Snake: lots of hisses…

Mourners may on electric pole post such bill;
On my father’s house’s wall I might them kill!

Strange Hobby

STRANGE HOBBY
"reading the obituaries just to see if you are still alive"
Indiana Shaw . . .

"Do me" . . . : /

Breaking Up With Debbie

She has the ‘screws’.
Her hips are 'creaky'
her leg is 'playing up.’

I yell into her good ear.
"Nice Morning Freda!"

"Gout." She says,
still following a conversation in her head.
"I don't even drink!"
I know this is a stretch
for I am her secret `pusher'.

"I'm going out later, can I get you anything?"

She looks directly at me at last.
She has been studying the obituaries
in the local paper.

"Isn't it terrible?"
"Yes Freda it is."
We never discuss specifics,
agreeing tacitly
that most things are `terrible.’

"Just the usual"

I make a note to buy,
sliced white bread.
Laughing Cow cheese spreads (original flavor).
Bologna sausage (which she calls Baloney).
"Little Debbie" Frosted Fudge cakes
and a bottle of sweet sherry.

Her list of wants is not far from mine,
except for the sherry,
I like to think my list is a little more refined,
and I have long since broke-up
with 'Little Debbie'.

Todays News Tomorrows Blues

Today’s News Tomorrows Blues
David J Walker

Off white
Black typed
Picket fence newspapers
Stacked in racks unread 

Everything said 
	Yesterday
Made news today 
Everyone who bled 
Or bruised made news

In the official records where
Only the dead are
Laid to rest in the haze of the
Obituaries details 

Scattered like ashes among 
The ads of mortuaries 

On the next page the movies
Remind us of the lives we will
Never know

But let’s go to the show
And forget about life
Until tomorrow’s  edition
Is put to bed

My Morning Read

Many years ago, birth announcements caught my eye.
But now, obituaries top my morning read.

Oh yes, these pictures stare at me with smiles.
Within each dear face- a small snap of life:
some, with expressions caught in younger days-
and others showing somber ones near death.
Below each face- the span of life in years-
and chosen words that list expected facts:
those left behind; accomplishments revealed.
Too short- to capture how they really lived.

This age- too many
stare at me from dark pages-
many I have known.
But those brief words never show
how sorely they will be missed.


October 18, 2021

Contest: Let's Mix It Up
Sponsor: Constance LaFrance

Theme: #1 Death

Unrhymed Couplet (2 lines)
Unrhymed Imagism (8 lines)
Tanka (5 lines)

Obsession

Obsession

Obsession with "O's"

Oh, obsession’s obfuscating oligarchy
Oceans of oblivion
Outrage in ostentatious obsession
Overrun in hurricanes named obdurate and obstinate
Overtures of oxidized compulsive orchestration in
Obbligatos overflowing obituaries -
Overbearing octaves of the obsequious –
Orations of overt objections
Objectivity overpopulated by opportunistic obtuse –
Obsession outweighing optimist’s objectives –
Openness offspring overrun by
Ominous hunters of sweet oblations ordained
Oscillating between logic and obsession unchallenged
Orthodoxy obscures opportunity
Officially ostracizes open-mindedness –
Original the outsider - occupied the outlier -
Observes only obstructive operations
Obedience to the one-track offertory
Of overstocked outdated ordinances,
Offshoots of outmoded operatic ornaments
Odious opium overdose of the obscene
Onyx odors overpowering odes
Offered on the altar of originality - 
Obliterating oligarchy of obsession 

9-23-21 
Sponsor: Constance La France
Contest:  “O” Contest

Natural Deaths

I ponder the phrase, ponder the 'natural'.
There are an infinite number of ways to die
either tragically or macabrely comic,
countless ways to cash-in or cash-out.
Obituaries record ‘sad endings’ from natural causes,
peaceful age related slow-go.
Lingering, suffering, grinning in a dark room
just waiting...not so natural.
The deceased have no say of course
some step on garden rakes and die from a hole in the head,
some deliberately put a hole in their heads.
Death is a one size fits all phenom.
Natural? Maybe if natural is a clown car full of bull crap.
What's unnatural, what is a great blessing
is when the once living plant God in your heart
then depart on a cosmic greyhound
leaving you to ponder the unnatural aspects
of the ever-loving natural.

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